Page:Psyche (1908).djvu/180

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The Jewel exists only in the pride of man. The universe is limited, the Godhead is not limited; no rays from precious stones can reach the Godhead and rule over God. No looking through lenses of diamond can penetrate the Godhead. It is all pride and vanity. Psyche, there is nothing but resignation. Emeralda is powerful, but more powerful she cannot become. . . .

“In vain will you seek.”

“Yet I will seek, Astra, although it be in vain. . . . And do you also, sister, lay penance on me. . . . Let me do penance for Astra, as I do for Emeralda.”

“No, child, I know no penance. There is nothing but resignation. There is nothing but to wait. Everything else is vanity and pride. But do penance, little Psyche. Penance is illusion, yet illusion is pleasant: illusion ennobles. Believe, poor child, in your penance, believe in your illusion. I have never known it. I have always calculated. The colossal numbers roll through my dull and hazy brain in endless series of figures. However you count, you never come to the sum of the endless. . . . The stars cannot be counted. The farthest sun is incomputable,